1914-1920? what if
I,ve been looking at prototype aircraft ,that never entered service due to the end of the war ,this one's the RAF AR3 RAM an armoured attack aircraft ,3 were made probably a lot more never went past the first trial flights.
http://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/att...1&d=1327063702
One of the things I wonder is just how quickly the pilots would collapse had the war lasted longer. They had to be under incredible stress and as the nature of the air war changed from handfuls of planes to squadrons of them with formation tactics, etc... I have to question whether or not the air war would remain a viable option both from the cost in material and men. Ultimately, I maintain that the war not going on much longer had much to do with the will of both civilians, governments, and fighting men alike. The pure exhaustion and incredible daily stress was most certainly at its limit even for experienced fliers by 1918.
See what happened in the Chaos of 1918-1922 in the East though.Originally Posted by sparty
Example : http://www.historynet.com/biplane-ba...-civil-war.htm
The perpetrators of this devastating piece of aerial warfare were four Sopwith Camels of B Flight, No. 47 Squadron, Royal Air Force, part of the British interventionist force in south Russia during the Russian Civil War. The squadron was acting in support of the anti-Bolshevik White Russian forces, otherwise known as the Volunteer Army, under General Anton Ivanovich Denikin.
Allied intervention in Russia had started in early 1918, after the fall of the Romanovs and the collapse of Aleksandr Kerensky's provisional government, when the subsequent peace agreement between the Bolsheviks and the Central Powers threatened to release hundreds of thousands of German soldiers to reinforce the Western Front.
...
Ultimately this brought about well-intentioned but ill-coordinated Allied involvement with the United States and Japan (which pursued its own colonial agenda in the Far East) over four years in several parts of Russia
...
Number 47 Squadron was commanded by the redoubtable 28-year-old Canadian Major (later Squadron Leader) Raymond Collishaw (DSO, DSC, DFC), the third-ranking British WWI ace, with 60 victories. Collishaw arrived in Novorossisk in early June 1919 with a volunteer group of 10 officers and 255 airmen. He officially assumed command on June 13, only three days after the squadron's newly formed C Flight had departed on the 180-mile rail journey from Ekaterinodar to Velikoknyazheskaya to bolster the Whites on the Volga front.
...
Political expediency touched 47 Squadron on October 1, 1919, when, owing to disquiet at home over the active involvement of a regular RAF squadron in support of the Whites, it was renamed A Squadron of the RAF's Training Mission. The change was entirely cosmetic. The unit carried on with its unremitting attacks on Bolshevik troop concentrations, armored trains and river transportation. Keeping up the attrition of the Red air force, Kinkead sent a Nieuport down out of control on October 7. Two days later Collishaw destroyed an Albatros D.V. Other victories soon followed.
Sadly, there is no limit for what humankind is capable in a war. You just need to check your History.
You're not far off with this -- but as has been noted, look at the amount of fighting which happened after the Armistice, esp. in Germany and the former Austro-Hungarian-Empire region, as well as Russia.
The weakness, if any, was in the politicians; and in the fact that whoever controls the seas controls the land (less so with railroads, but still true). If the War had continued much longer, the chaos would have engulfed the entirety of Europe -- the British Isles included. (*That* would make an interesting "post-apocalyptic" alt-history: The US remains strictly neutral; Germany manages its last-ditch offensive in '18, but the stress of the campaign and the war as a whole causes Germany to collapse; meanwhile the defeat of the Anglo-French forces touches off revolts in Britain and France. _Twilight:1920_, anyone? :) )
At least then you wouldn't have had to keep track of rad points!Twilight:1920_, anyone?)
Now that would have been a champaign for my role-playing days.You're not far off with this -- but as has been noted, look at the amount of fighting which happened after the Armistice, esp. in Germany and the former Austro-Hungarian-Empire region, as well as Russia.
The weakness, if any, was in the politicians; and in the fact that whoever controls the seas controls the land (less so with railroads, but still true). If the War had continued much longer, the chaos would have engulfed the entirety of Europe -- the British Isles included. (*That* would make an interesting "post-apocalyptic" alt-history: The US remains strictly neutral; Germany manages its last-ditch offensive in '18, but the stress of the campaign and the war as a whole causes Germany to collapse; meanwhile the defeat of the Anglo-French forces touches off revolts in Britain and France. _Twilight:1920_, anyone?
Karl
It is impossible for a man to begin to learn what he thinks he knows. -- Epictetus
Karl:
You might like this. Sorry for my poor English.
http://thecenturywar.blogspot.com/
For a "what if" idea for WW2 have a look at "A very British Civil war", it's made by a small company but some of the background is pretty good. It's mainly army orientated but...
Any good books on the subject of ongoing warfare beyond armistice? I'd love to read something like that.
Sparty,
To see what a mess Eurasia remained in after the Armistice, I'd recommend 'A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today' by David A. Andelman, Wiley 2008, ISBN 978-0-471-78898-0.
BofB
_White Eagle, Red Star_ by Norman Davies -- the Polish-Soviet War and the "miracle on the Vistula".
This thread might be useful...
http://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/sho...-Russian-Front.
There are some good URLs on that thread.
http://worldatwar.net/chandelle/v2/v2n1/redfighter.html - Red aircraft
http://worldatwar.net/chandelle/v2/v2n3/whitfalc.html - White aircraft
To give you an idea of the chaos...
I tell you, what if...
Ever heared of KAISERFRONT?
A special Korps beat down the German revolution in 1918 down and a succesfull German offensive in 1919 reaches Paris and end the Great War.
This is the result:
Voilŕ le soleil d'Austerlitz!
Boy that's a real fantasy right there. I can see that a greater breakdown or civil order (Twilight 1920) as being more believable.
Or even an American neutrality, causing France to sue for a negotiated peace in 1917/18 with resulting chaos in the East to be cleaned up by a mutually hostile Germany and UK.
Karl
It is impossible for a man to begin to learn what he thinks he knows. -- Epictetus
It is impossible for a man to begin to learn what he thinks he knows. -- Epictetus
No -- and the only reference I could find is in German (and two years of HS German is not up to the task of translation :) ). Is this a video game, a novel series, or some other medium?
Couple points on that map:
1) I see the maker used a modern map for the Russian-Finnish border; Russia did not acquire Karelia and the Norwegian border until the '40s.
2) Given how screwed up the Ottoman Empire was even before the war, I don't see it surviving intact even if the Central Powers win.
Important post, thanks for that, csadn. Just look at the cards included in some of the blisters of WoW (like Crossfire or Hit and Run if I remember well.) guys. You can find there many after-war Polish and Soviet biplanes ready for use. I think of a campaign in which we can put these nice cards into action of years 1919-20.
"We do not stop playing when we get old, but we get old when we stop playing."
AFAIK Kaiserfront is a novel series with highly right-wing extremist (NeoNazi) contents.No -- and the only reference I could find is in German (and two years of HS German is not up to the task of translation
Couple points on that map:
1) I see the maker used a modern map for the Russian-Finnish border; Russia did not acquire Karelia and the Norwegian border until the '40s.
2) Given how screwed up the Ottoman Empire was even before the war, I don't see it surviving intact even if the Central Powers win.
Himmel, wie kommst Du denn da drauf?
It's a story about a parallel universe where the Kaiserreich won the first World War...
Voilŕ le soleil d'Austerlitz!
Could be confusing it with "Stahlfront" but the publisher (Unitall-Verlag) is the same.
Last edited by Kaiser; 01-23-2012 at 11:12.
I have a series called WINGMAN. Its all air battles. He flys a modifies F-16. Was a pretty cool series so there is a possiability of strange things. There are many miniature games with future events so why not aircraft.
I'll have to disagree with this. The motivation behind the post-Armistice fighting was very different to that of the World War. The concept of nationhood that lay behind nearly all of them was a new thing.
But Twilight:1920 is a brilliant idea!
Aris K.
I hope they had a lot of good shoe leather, as Germany was pretty much out of petroleum products by the latter half of 1918!
The weakness I was referring to was the Central Powers's leadership falling apart, which then allowed the various nationalist forces to rise and move unhindered, as well as being unable to stop the various "civil wars" (which led inexorably to the "strongman" governments of the '30s).
Glad you like the idea of people having to fight their way across a Europe torn completely apart.... ;)
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